Two brothers have been caught trying to smuggle hundreds of steroid pills and painkillers into prison by packing them inside Ribena cartons.
Nahim Ali, 34, was serving time in Featherstone Prison, Staffordshire, when contacted his brother Tahir, 40, on the outside, and asked him to help smuggle drugs in.
On February 19 last year, police watched on CCTV as Tahir drove a van up to the prison's work entrance, stopped, and was spotted throwing something over the wall.
When they searched the area they found three Ribena cartons filled with 750 pills, as well as liquid testosterone and another steroid.
They included 399 tablets of oxymetholone and 310 tablets of oxandrolone, both powerful anabolic steroids, and 49 tablets of buprenorphine, a painkiller sometimes used as a heroin substitute.
Also contained within the juice cartons were 30ml of testosterone, and 30ml of nandrolone, a steroid favoured by body builders.
Police had been tipped off to the plot after intercepting a call from Tahir to his brother explaining how the drugs would be packaged.
Officers waited for the next smuggling run to be made, when they replaced the drug-filled cartons with fakes.
On 27 February Tahir came to the prison again to collect his brother, who was due to be released that day, but instead police swooped and arrested them.
Both brothers, from Birmingham, admitted a charge of conspiracy to supply class C drugs and were bailed to appear at a later date.
The case comes in the wake of a damning report by The Independent Monitoring Board in January which suggested the lack of staff at the jail was having a serious impact.
The report highlighted vandalised cells, widespread drug use, bullying, thefts, and violent prisoners at the Category C men’s jail, which can hold 687 adults.
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